Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences | 2019 Taking College Esports Seriously Nyle Sky Kauweloa Jenifer Sunrise Winter University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa [email protected] [email protected] Abstract environment involving student-lead clubs and scholarship-based teams. The University of This study examined how collegiate esports players Washington and the University of British Columbia conceptualized their own competitive gameplay as have student-organized gaming clubs on their situated between work and play. Using interviews campuses, with collegiate esports organizations guided by Stebbins’ (2007) serious leisure perspective, TESPA and the Collegiate Starleague supporting 16 collegiate esports players described how belonging hundreds of teams and offering thousands of dollars in to a collegiate esports team has shaped their identity, scholarships [6]. and how they experienced gaming within the Game developers have started to see the structured environment of a collegiate esports team benefits of collegiate esports. Riot Games holds a and club. Stebbins’ description of skill and knowledge series of collegiate tournaments in North America development was supported, and the findings are in open to student-clubs and esports varsity programs, accord with Stebbins’ conceptualization of “personal the most recent being the College League of Legends. rewards,” such as self-expression, self-image, and Notable among the tournaments was the 2016 North self-actualization. American Collegiate Championships (NACC) for the League of Legends (LoL) [7] game. The competition ended with a match between the University of British 1.The Growth of Collegiate Esports Columba’s (UBC) student-lead esports club and Robert Morris University’s esports scholarship team. With much of the focus upon professional UBC won $180,000 dollars for their team in 1st place esports, less attention has been directed at competitive money [8]. The 2016 win by UBC was a back-to-back esports developments on university and college win, as they also won the 2015 championship, making campuses across North America. At the start of 2017, a total of $360,000 dollars for the team. 40 collegiate esports scholarship programs began in What these tournaments illustrate is the North America, with over 4 million dollars in college potential for large monetary payoffs if players dedicate funding for esports [1]. Today, more than 70 programs the time and effort to develop the expertise to play at exist with 9 million dollars of scholarship money in this level. For students who are already gamers, this the collegiate scene [2]. Robert Morris University becomes an attractive activity as college costs (RMU), the University of California at Irvine (UCI), continue to increase. Esports scholarships can be a few and the University of Utah (UT) have varsity-based thousand dollars per student each year, to complete collegiate esports programs. RMU was the first school full-ride scholarships [9]. to offer varsity esports scholarships in 2014. In 2016, Opportunities to take a dedicated turn an important shift occurred when UCI announced its towards video games in college, however, presently own esports program in 2016, making it the first public exist alongside entrenched public perceptions of research university to offer esports scholarships [3]. harms associated with the excessive use of popular The University of Utah started its own program in media [10], [11]. Early academic work on video games 2017, making it the first university in the Power Five examined the influence gaming plays in the athletic conferences to offer esports scholarships. socialization of youth, addictive habits kids may While collegiate esports programs have develop with games, and the consequences of being garnered attention, it is notable that video games exposed to video game violence [12], [13], [14]. played at colleges are not a new thing [4]. The first Decades later, results from video game research are video game tournament ever held was a college affair, more nuanced. Studies indicate that time spent in when in 1972, competitors gathered to play Spacewar certain games (MMOs) allows for the development of at Stanford University [5]. Today, playing video team-building skills [15], personal initiative by youths games competitively takes place in a more structured URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10125/59683 ISBN: 978-0-9981331-2-6 Page 2448 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) [16], and the management of feelings of boredom, Taylor [29] wrote early about the dedication of frustration, and anger [17]. EverQuest “power gamers,” finding them to be As students spend time committed to playing reflective, goal-oriented, and social. Work on power video games, concerns over whether collegiate esports gamers informed her later research on the affords students meaningful college experiences have professionalization of esports, as becoming a started to surface [18]. Parents have questioned the professional involves a greater set of skills beyond impact esports involvement will have on their children being technically proficient at video games. The while in college [19]. To address these concerns, it will extended work involves being flexible to changes, be important to explore the dynamics of taking an open to communication, and a cooperative team activity that is normally viewed as leisure (playing member [30]. Professionalization also requires video games) and seeing it transformed into an activity reorienting of values, with players making greater that looks more like work [20]. Specifically, does a efforts to master their gameplay and to realize their more dedicated orientation towards playing video potential as skilled players [31]. As leisure is games in college offer students benefits related to translated into work, professionalization means issues of confidence, identity development, and social players should be institutionally aware of the industry belonging. This paper examines the perspective of and the career choices they make. This requires a students who are players in either student-based concerted effort in building their own media brands, esports clubs or in esports scholarship programs. The cultivating professional identities, having some study addresses how participants see their gaming understanding around contractual law, knowing what within the context of work and play. Specifically, the a transition to a different team will mean for their study employed the serious leisure framework [21] as careers, and being financially responsible [20]. committed leisure to examine how players Scholarship on esports, however, has started conceptualized their dedication to competitively to examine the corrosive effects work-like orientations playing video games. can have when winning becomes the singular goal of players. Brock [32] disagrees with previous 2. The Work of Video Games conceptualizations of work and play in esports as being constructions that recognize the intermingling of work and play into an acceptable reality for The work versus play literature on video professional gamers [33]. Stories from esports players, games situates the transformation of when amateurs such as Min-Ki, who find themselves financially become more dedicated towards activities that have pressured to match-fix LoL games in Korea or face his traditionally been viewed as play [22], [23], [24], [25]. team disbanding, illustrate that rationalized play in For example, the work of amateur “modders” involves esports can perpetuate systems of social control, award modifying game code. For some modifications, the aggressive competition, and present a destabilizing work can be so valuable that some game mods can be element in employment [32]. parleyed into independently successful video games The work versus play literature in video [23]. Game companies can benefit from this uneven games provides an outline of what a work-like relationship with modders, as companies locate this orientation towards gaming looks like and the type of work outside the bounds of a traditional potential for exploitation and corruption by outside employee-employer relationship [26]. forces. While acknowledging the prospect for The virtual world of massively multiplayer exploitation, the literature also suggests there are online role-playing games (MMORPGs), such as benefits for gamers in their commitment. Modders, for World of Warcraft and EVE Online, has traditionally example, highlighted the pleasure in having ownership presented itself as a digital space of escapism and and control over the planning and designing of games enjoyment, but it is also a space where significant in- [26]. Power gamers understood their work-like game labor is expended [27]. In-game economies in orientation towards rationalized play to be a MMORPGs depend upon the extraction of virtual pleasurable part of how they gamed [20]. Finally, goods to advance in the game. Dedication to “gold “professionalized” esports players appreciated the farming” involves intense work-like execution of sense of community and friendships made as video repetitive tasks to extract virtual goods. Chinese gold games became a core activity in one’s life [31]. farmers would spend hours “grinding” it out in front The collegiate esports community has not of computers for very little pay. The result was the experienced the same undermining of work and labor creation of a billion-dollar industry in gold farming present in the gaming literature. A relevant concern, with around